Bioware's Dr. Ray Muzyka Responds To The Bullies

There is no act more cowardly than bullying, and when that act is perpetrated on a grand scale the impact and scale of that cowardice is increased multifold. I was absolutely horrified at the treatment Bioware writer Jennifer Hepler had to endure over the past couple of days, and today Bioware founder Dr. Ray Muzyka responded directly to those who have been attacking Jennifer.

"Jennifer is a valued, talented employee who has been with BioWare for many years and we hope will be with us for many more." said Muzyka. "It is awful that a few people have decided to make her a target for hate and threats, going so far as fabricating forum posts and attributing them to her, and singling her out for projects to which she has not contributed (i.e., Jennifer is not even a part of the Mass Effect writing team). All of us at BioWare support and will continue to support Jennifer fully, and are happy to see so many people out there are also supporting her during this difficult time."

I'm not going to rag on about this, because it's been covered multiple times by multiple outlets, but I find the whole thing deplorable. Nothing bothers me more than a bully, and when that bully is protected by the anonymity of the internet the whole thing becomes more insidious. I just consider myself lucky that I'm part of a community that seems to (for the most part) have a healthy respect for one another. Long may that continue!

The sheer bile, rage and hatred directed at this woman was just vile. There's no other word for it. Sometimes the internet really brings out the worst in people, and it makes me sick to the stomach, each and every time.

What really makes me sick is the realisation of how many people responsible for attacking this woman would've just done so because they saw everyone else doing it and decided to jump on the hatewagon. That's the scary part. Like a pack of dogs just following suit.

I honestly hope that people that do this sort of thing one day receive such treatment themselves. I don't wish them harm or anything - I hope they get to feel what it's like to be on the receiving end of such behaviour.

The collective sense of outrage about a game many of them probably never played, about fake quotes none of them bothered to check, to the point that they'd call her phone number and leave abusive messages. Or force her to shut her Twitter down by sending hundreds of hate-filled tweets.

Then the defensiveness - people actually justifying the bullying as deserved, because she wrote something in a video game, as part of her job, that they didn't agree with. Or that it was important to heap abuse on this writer, because of something intangible she represented about the industry.

The collective sense of outrage about a game many of them probably never played, about fake quotes none of them bothered to check, to the point that they'd call her phone number and leave abusive messages. Or force her to shut her Twitter down by sending hundreds of hate-filled tweets.

Then the defensiveness - people actually justifying the bullying as deserved, because she wrote something in a video game, as part of her job, that they didn't agree with. Or that it was important to heap abuse on this writer, because of something intangible she represented about the industry.

Typical troll, you start losing an argument, so clearly those arguing against you must be some how financially tied to the entity you are trying to bag out, coz you know, people who could afford that would have nothing better to do with their lives than sit on random video game sites defending their money.

News flash buddy. They are arguing with you because the only thing your brain is useful for is keeping your ears apart.

I hate the cowadice of bullying and yes the anonymity of the internet seems to give every little prick a voice. look at any thread under an article and the rudeness and idiocy seems to be of higher then in person due to little concequence

I'm so sorry I gave you guys money and you can't take something as simple as being called fat on the internet while Notch and Gabe Newell deal with it all the time in the classiest way possible. Let's all feel sorry for the employees of a big AAA company that can't take being called names.

And "fat" was hardly the worst word used to describe her. The C word, for instance, was used a lot.

Not to mention that when people call Gabe fat, it's used in a jovial manner. This doesn't necessarily make those right, but these insults aimed at Ms. Hepler were fueled by loathing, which is a very important distinction.

As you can see, from most of the comments above, even white knighting in a pack is a form of bullying.

People have opinions. Deal with it.

As for this particular incident? Well, I haven't seen what's been posted so I won't pass comment on that. But it does appear to be a storm in a teacup.

Also, a $1000 donation? Are you kidding me?! I helped raise over $15,000 in 2 months for a child with cerebral palsy - and that's only the latest non-commercial fund raiser. Get back to me when they want to get serious ant donate $100,000.

That reeks of the arguments you hear in America about fundamentalists bullying gays and then crying out that they're being oppressed when people try to stop their bullying. "You're not tolerating my intolerance so you're just as bad as I am!"

Bollocks.

If someone is being an asshole, telling them that they're being an asshole does not bring you down to their level.

Its not ganging up. Its just that more people disagree with him than agree. You defend peoples right to an opinion. Everyone is voicing theirs, if more people share one opinion than another its not ganging up. Its not like we all huddled in a dark corner of the internet saying "hey see that guy over there, he is wrong, lets all attack him at the same time"

It's not about who agrees/disagrees or how many. It's how that message is conveyed. Questioning someones intelligence, calling them an asshole, etc. isn't constructive and is bullying. Name calling and any form of belittling is bullying.

While i agree, at the same time, from everything that i read, it was simply returning the tone that had already been used by the individuals themselves. Not saying that makes it right, but sets the standard.

Your original point was that mass white knighting was a form of bullying. Now you're trying to say that bullying in response to bullying is just is bad.

The first point is absurd because white knighting and bullying are two separate things. White knighting can present it self in the form of bullying or it could present it self in the form of reasonable argument. The latter is generally what's happening here.

The second point is true. Bullying in response to bullying is still bullying. Guess what? Nobody is disagreeing on that. I wasn't. I was saying that calling someone out for being an asshole is not bullying.

When people start flailing their arms about and start bonking people on the nose, telling them to stop is not bullying.

People are allowed to have different opinions/hair colours/sexual orientations/favourite breeds of dog/religions and whatever. As soon as they start using that as motivation to cause harm to others, then telling them that they're wrong is not "pushing your version" or bullying, it's trying to stop people who are pushing their version and/or bullying.

Everyone is entitled to an opinion but having an opinion means nothing if you can't justify it. Having an opinion or belief does not make it sacred. Especially if you're using that opinion to cause harm to others. Calling people out on that and trying to get them to change their opinion is not bullying.

I just don't get what the point of this is. If people are genuinely unhappy with the quality of an aspect of a Bioware game, the best way you can show bioware how unhappy you are is by not buying that game.

The problem here is common sense being common once again. These trolls who whine and complain honestly cant wait to throw their money at the exact people they complain about. The question isnt if the game is good, they are sheep they'll buy it anyway They just feel that if they pay their $80 or however much that they deserve all the extras regardless if they did cost more to produce, regardless of anything.

This whole episode disgusts me.
I also think it's beyond time for gamers to stop yelling "white knight" every time someone displays a bit of sympathy for the plight of a fellow human who happens to be female.

"I just consider myself lucky that I’m part of a community that seems to (for the most part) have a healthy respect for one another."

Really? I mean, obviously there are a lot of great commenters on here, but the level of Ashcraft/Plunkett bashing is getting nuts. Has it been directly addressed yet by Mark or Tracey? How is it allowed to continue on here without any sort of Australian editorial intervention? Genuinely curious.

There's a 'Report' button next to comments that people are meant to press if the comment is offensive to them, or inappropriate, or any other thing that might bother them (like US editor bashing). I think maybe there isn't enough people using it. It's there to let the Kotaku AU team what we think isn't acceptable around here, so if nobody uses it they don't know what we expect.

I remember seeing that, and I remember being disgusted and reporting it.

But that doesn't make valid criticisms about Plunkett and Ashcraft's work any less valid. I don't think either of them are bad people. A little misogynistic perhaps, but malevolent isn't a word I would use to describe them. I think they are well-meaning individuals who do show morsels of talent here and there. I do not think that they are brilliant journalists, however.

I agree. I'm fine with calling people out for writing only a single line for an article or getting facts wrong, but the personal attacks are bloody stupid. People like Chazz and a tonne of others have angry words on every US post about the author.

The reason people are doing it is because the US authors don't respond to the comments, and they don't even see the articles. Logan/Tracy/Mark don't have hate mail because the trolls know that they'll be called out by the authors.

I always considered "white knights" to be those who used their dictation of morals to simultaneously entrench their position in an argument to the side of what is "good" and belittle the detractors.

It comes up a lot as a counter insult in threads regarding money-grabbing business tactics and piracy, where I'll admit to using it a lot.

I do think it applies here though, since while there are plenty of asshats here arguing, there's plenty of people exclaiming "How horrible some people are!" As if their claim to the moral high ground actually means anything.

You can say how much people disgust you or how reprehensible this is, but at the end of the day the people who originated the hatred for Hepler honestly give zero cares and are making it sound like they've raised money for charity by bullying Hepler (in a joking, facetious way). You don't combat 4chan. You grow thick skin, don't bait them and accept that the internet has places where people shittalk for shittalking's sake.

It's going to happen regardless, you can't change the nature of the internet (Jonathan Gabriel's Greater Internet Fuckwad Theory applies). The best you can do is take it on the chin and not aggravate things by saying that people are just calling you a bad writer and poor choice for a developer because "you have a vagina and a job in the games industry and they have neither". There's no defending the reprehensible behaviour of trolls, but they aren't going to go away if you donate a pitiful amount to a local charity either.

Bioware professionalism. They can put out a decent statement now, but when this was going down they were just as idiotic as the troll.

Hepler and co just fueled the fire further especially Hepler's idiotic comment; "There're just jealous that I have a VAGINA and akso get to work in the games industry" (paraphrasing) that and she incited it in the first place by posting stupid crap on her twitter after a trip to Reddit. Everyone has critics. Don't poke the bear.

Did this get out of hand? Yep. Did people handle the situation well? nope. Should Hepler have gone on Reddit, then post stupid comments on twitter? Yeah, could have avoided this.

There is a core complaint that needs to be dealt with like the writing (yup, it's pretty bad) and Bioware's steady decline into mediocrity. The bullying isn't justified but these complaints have been around for a year minimum and Bioware have done nothing as far as facing the criticism or learning from their mistakes. It just got left until the internet exploded.

"Bioware have done nothing as far as facing the criticism or learning from their mistakes." Bioware don't need to do anything. The internet has no right to tell them what to do with their games, just like it has no right to tell authors how to write their books. People can complain all they want but nobody has to do anything about the criticism. Just because the people who don't like things are the loudest doesn't mean they need to be paid attention to.

And I wish people would stop saying Hepler deserved it and it was her own fault. Nobody deserves what happened to her. That's as idiotic as saying a rape victim deserved it because they dressed sexy.

But most of us also know fire is hot and sticking your head into an open flame won't end well. The internet is crawling with trolls though who are always on the lookout for an easy target. It would help these targets if they didn't cover themselves in fluorescent paint, jump up and down while screaming "look at me" too. As the saying goes "Don't feed the troll".

But the apathy is feeding them just as much as those who antagonise them. If people don't call them out on it then they'll think what they're doing is okay. Not all "trolls" are just in it for the attention, some of them actually believe in the vitriol they spew.

I didn't say the trolls are seeking attention but the target can sometimes paint a, well a target, on themselves. It doesn't excuse it but can explain it. Sorry if you missed that but I tend to waffle on sometimes and people miss what I'm trying to convey :) lol

Sometimes saying nothing is the best response though. I've received my fair share of hate mail in the past and it's best to ignore it. Replying only feeds their desire to continue.

You'll find in most mediums that the creative types will actual respond to their criticism, because they actually want their fans to continue opening their wallets... or they could just continue to boost their metacritic ratings and chase the "COD audience".

Oh please, the majority of the abuse was directed at hepler before she responded back. I think her response was justified. Whiny little manchildren are jsut trying to pretend like they aren't bad people because Helper has the audacity to fire one shot back in her own defence.

There has always been criticism of Hepler for both her DA2 writing and the infamous interview she did with Killer Betties (long gone from the internet now).

That criticism was on the front page of reddit, she saw it, things got heated and the reddit mods went on a ban spree (pretty much everyone except hepler). After that she got all passive aggressive on twitter and everything went to shit after that.

Men, we doth have thy swords to slay in twine trolls from internet yonder. Stand firm, for thy maidan will bequeth thee with intercourse and riches and thou peasantry shalt exhalt thy name for ages to come.

Also, Balckwater hit the nail on the head. She fueled some much flame with her idiotic comments. DONT FEED THE TROLLS AND THEY WILL STARVE.

No, you're posting a board run by people who have respect for other people. Learn to do the same if you don't want your comments removed. Yes, I "report"ed some of your comments, but I also "report"ed some of your opponents' as well. Argue if you feel like you need to, but just treat your opponents with respect, please.

Moderating comments is not censorship.
Going on a website like Kotaku is like going into someone's house. If you went into someone's place, dropped your pants and took a dump in the middle of the living room floor, your ass would be kicked to the curb. Same applies to blogs. The internet does NOT give you a free pass to abandon all respect for other humans, same rules for reality apply here: act like a gentleman (or lady) and you'll be treated with respect, act like a jackass and you'll be treated accordingly.*

*unless you're on reddit or 4chan, and I suggest people who may have a problem with the way Kotaku AU conducts their business by creating a comfortable environment for discussion can go to these places instead.

one of the most terrible things about this is that it's really making the fanbase look terrible, i know that there are probably a lot of mass effect fans who aren't agreeing with this, but the vocal majority make mass effect fans look like ungrateful.

Only logged in users may vote for comments!

Get Permalink

Trending Stories Right Now

Today, how you feel about panty shots can determine how you feel about anime as a whole. And it's not just panty shots. In the blockbuster anime Food Wars, women's clothes burst off their bodies when they taste an exquisite bite of steak. Skirts often don't cover the bottom halves of women's butts in Prison School. Breasts are regularly the first body part to enter a shot in Is It Wrong to Try to Pick Up Girls in a Dungeon?. In the West, the practice of lacing gratuitous sexuality -- and especially female sexuality -- into an anime is known as "fan service". Love it or hate it, anime studios have made a conscious effort to feature "fan service" in most of this year's Western-subbed anime titles.

Why buy games on day one any more? A newly planned set of updates for Final Fantasy 15 won't just fix bugs, they will add story cutscenes and improve the game's slow-paced 13th chapter by adding more powers to Noctis's repertoire.